BusTalk

[Mr. Linsky]

'M.T.A. Brings TVs to the Subway'


By SHANE DIXON KAVANAUGH
September 21st. 2010 The New York Times.

Passengers on the S train between Times Square and Grand Central could travel in baseball-theme-decorated cars, part of a “full body wrap” advertising campaign by the cable network TBS to promote its coverage of the playoffs, which begin in October.

Get ready for a new kind of subway series. Just don’t expect to see the Yankees going glove-to-glove with the Mets.

Televisions, in the form of 10-inch video screens, made their debut in the New York City subway system on Tuesday, providing a vivid contrast to the usual static advertisements familiar to most commuters.

Instead of Dr. Zizmor, there were replays of home runs, stolen bases and other baseball highlights. And instead of the usual colors, the train’s seats were decorated to look like numbered box seats.
Video screens are displaying game highlights.Yana Paskova for The New York Times Video screens are displaying game highlights.

The makeover, the latest effort by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to increase its advertising revenue, introduced video screens throughout one of its subway trains on Tuesday that will play game highlights during Major League Baseball’s postseason playoffs, also challenged the notion that the subway might be immune to technology’s allure.

While the authority has not been shy about decorating turnstiles, columns and even the exteriors of subway cars with the latest advertising schemes, the video screens represent a new way to sell advertising.

“Our uncertain finances mean that we have to think creatively to maximize the value of our physical assets,” the agency’s chairman, Jay H. Walder, said in a statement. “One way we are doing this is by creating more dynamic advertising opportunities.”

The video screens, four per car, appeared inside the 42nd Street shuttle, running between Times Square and Grand Central Terminal. They are part of a “full body wrap” advertising campaign in the subway by the cable network TBS to promote its coverage of the playoffs, which begin in October. Once the playoffs start, the screens will show highlights from the previous day’s games; the plays seen on the screens now were just random baseball moments.

Full-color vinyl images of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and other stars blanket the outside and inside of the subway cars. Vinyl reproductions of stadium lights run the length of each car.

Some aboard the train on Tuesday kept their faces buried in books, iPhones and Kindles. Others craned their necks, their eyes darting from the ceiling to the video screens.

“It’s too bad I can only take this train one stop,” said Anthony Polini, 42, a Yankees fan and a bank analyst from Westfield, N.J. “I’d do this in my room, but my wife wouldn’t let me.”

Kalynn Amadio, 47, an architectural lighting consultant in White Plains, later agreed.

“It kind of makes me want to go to a baseball game,” she said.

While video advertisements have been part of some transit systems such as Boston, Buenos Aires and Madrid for years, the transportation authority began playing with the technology only in the last two years. In 2008, it began installing L.E.D. screens on the sides of city buses, with content updated monthly. Last year, it began a pilot program of similar L.E.D. screens on a small number of trains on the Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road.

Similarly, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey teamed up with NBC in 2009 to bring its PATH Vision to its trains. More than 100 of the trains now display PATH Vision, news, sports, advertising and service updates through 25-inch screens at stations and inside more than 100 trains.

Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, would not predict whether the use of video screens would expand, saying only,
“Customers in a transit environment can expect increasing levels of sophistication in advertising.”

In 2004, the agency generated $88.2 million in advertising revenue, according to its own statistics. Last year, that number was $127.8 million. But advertising revenue accounts for only a tiny fraction of the agency’s $11 billion annual operating budget.

Mr. Donovan declined to reveal how much TBS paid for its advertising campaign. A spokeswoman from TBS did not return calls.

A shuttle rider on Tuesday was skeptical of how effective the network’s advertisements would be.

“One car would’ve been good enough,” said Christopher Brown, 52, a limousine driver from the Inwood section of Manhattan. “I mean, there’s a lot of baseball fans in New York. But not that many.”

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York


Yana Paskoff for the New York Times